[Janet Toye]

Parents of Group ABA Children's Society(GABA), a non profit preschool for children with autism, are having an online silent auction. Please see http://www.bidraiser.org and click on Group ABA Children's Society to view the items ranging from restaurant gift cards to an one night stay at a bed and breakfast. The online auction closes on Friday, June 3rd at 5PM and the final bids will be collected at the annual GABA picnic (Confederation Park) on Saturday, June 4th at 1:30PM. So make sure that you’ve put in your reserved bids. The auction is open to everyone but any prizes must be picked up from Vancouver or by self addressed stamped envelope. Thanks for your support.

[Janet Toye]

Dave Collyer,

Thank you for speaking up for ALL of our children!

[Janet Toye]

Suggestions Needed

I am interested in speaking with anyone (parents, teachers, B.I.s, behaviour consultants,etc.) who has had experience with the socialization of a very rigid deaf/blind child. Strategies on how to encourage a nine year old boy to be interested in interacting with his peers is needed. (He has not been formally diagnosed with autism yet but it is in the works.) Please contact jftoye@hotmail.com

[Janet Toye]

Hi Jane,

I think these questions should be directed at the school, and if you are not satisfied with their responses, go up the chain of command. I have been a teacher for almost twenty years and have never encountered students being excluded from school-wide events or extracurricular activities. Have they given you reasons for this?

There are times when students are taught in separate places, especially if they are receiving specific instruction in a group which consists of students from other classes, but it is not usually for most of the day. Also, if your child is on a separate program, the voice of the aid and the teacher may be compete with each other during lesson time. Teachers are all different and some think it is beneficial to have quiet classes and others believe in noisy classes. The latter would be particularly difficult for a child with attention problems and perhaps the aide or resource teacher finds that your child works best in a quieter environment. Have you ever had two coworkers who couldn't stand to be in the same room? How is the relationship between the classroom teacher and the aide? Once I had a "less than adequate aide" attempt to leave the classroom with the student on every available opportunity. I am only guessing but I would suggest frequent communication with your school if you have questions or concerns about their actions.

My son is in kindergarten and we have the opposite problem. We wanted the school to take him and some of his friends to the resource room to specifically work on his social skills but they had their own reasons for why they didn't want to do it. The classroom teacher did not want to force other children to work on skills that they were not ready for.

I usually have to take many deep breaths during meetings at my son's school.

[Janet Toye]

Is there a way that we can all file some sort of class action suit against all the school districts that are resisting the Hewko decision? That way we don't have to individually fight it out with our own school district. It is mentally straining, time consuming, and costly. We would also be doing this for all parents who are not able to advocate for their children because of language barriers, education, etc. Does anyone know of an education lawyer who can answer this question?

[Janet Toye]

Hi David(Chan),

I don’t agree with your comment about how special needs students in the building make students, teachers, and administrators uncomfortable. I am not familiar with the schools you have encountered but I have certainly have not seen this in my travels. People in elementary schools have come a long way in not only accepting special needs students but also learning from them. I have noticed that primary students are always open and excited about interacting with special needs students (even if the special needs student has no interest in interacting with them) but we do need to learn how to promote more positive interactions with the upper intermediates. All too often the special needs students’ best friend is their aide.

Integration/Segregation issue -There is no doubt that having a special needs student in a classroom benefits society and the other children in the classroom, but it is the immediate needs of the individual special needs student that takes priority in my mind.

[Janet Toye]

Dave (Collyer),

I love your idea of having qualified consultants come into the schools to train the staff, however, it is problematic on a number of fronts – turfism is only one. Our behaviour consultants are excellent, but they are also very costly, and there is also the cost of releasing the school staff so they can be trained. In the next few weeks, we will hear about where our school boards will be cutting and it will be ugly. (It is rumored that many schools will lose their vice-principals and some support staff who care for the most vulnerable.) In such an environment, new ideas about how to spend more money will not be welcomed. It is also bargaining year and the executive members on both sides will be busy with negotiations. Our association polled the teachers about important issues for bargaining in October and while more support for special needs students is usually at the top of the priority list, the idea of outsourcing behaviour consultants is not what anyone had in mind. There will need to be a major shift in thinking and change is generally very slow, especially in large school districts. Also, unless you have witnessed the results of a program designed by a board certified behaviour analyst, you really don’t understand how inadequate the programs in the schools are.

I had considered approaching our district staff about this very matter earlier in the school year and seeing your idea in print initially spurred me on to think that I could coordinate a delegation and present the idea to our district’s decision makers. But then reality set in. There is an $11.8 million shortfall. If I can’t even get counseling for my students, how do I expect to convince them to fund the costly venture of outsourcing consultants and releasing school staff so they can be trained? The only thing I can do now is plant the seed somewhere and water it when the sun comes out.

[Janet Toye]

Dave (Chan),

From where I am standing, I don’t see them forcing special needs students into segregated classes. However, I wonder if more parents will choose to have their child in a special needs class because of the deterioration of support in the regular classroom? Schools are grouping special needs children in the same class to save the cost of hiring more support workers. The theory is that a single support worker will be able to assist all the special needs children. However,often the reality is the neediest student who requires one to one support will get most of the assistance and the less needy will be neglected.

We have a couple classes in our school district specifically for children with autism but the parents must be in favour of having their child in such a program before they are enrolled in them. I have met the staff from one of these programs and I was amazed by their experience, knowledge and the commitment to children with autism – they really know what they are doing. Those of us in the regular stream suffer greatly in comparison. Our children with autism are like snowflakes and each of them have their individual needs. I don’t believe in the one size fits all model. In my opinion, most autistic children should be integrated into regular classrooms, but there are circumstances when I think our kids would achieve more progress in the special programs. I often wonder how effective it would be to have some of our kids in the special program for part of the day and in the regular program for the rest of the day. A program similar to this used to be in existence for ESL students many years ago, but it became too costly and it was axed.

[Janet Toye]

David,

I have the utmost respect for you and all the wonderful things you have done for the autism community, but I was quite offended by your “yayadayadayada” comment. I am an elementary school teacher and I am constantly losing sleep because of the quality and quantity of support my special needs children receive. Dealing with aides who are “not on the same page” and constantly advocating for my students so the principal will not withdraw any support during the school year takes a toll and conditions have gotten worse in my almost twenty years of teaching. There was a time when all special needs students received an aide but now these children are only guaranteed support if there is a safety issue. Today, ensuring that special needs children have a decent education is not a good enough reason for extra support. Although school districts receive an extra $18,000 per special needs student from the province, there are instances when none of that money goes toward that child in the form of additional support in the classroom.

In a typical classroom there are also many struggling students who have not been diagnosed and the current system makes it extremely difficult for teachers to recommend psycho-educational or speech and language assessments for them. Even if they are approved for one of these assessments, the wait list is usually over a year long and sometimes even two years, so the teacher struggles to understand the child and attempts to adapt a program that it is meaningful to them. We have difficulty designing a program for our own special needs child, can you imagine doing it for three others of different abilities as well? Now, shall we talk about students with social/emotional/ behavioural problems? I had a student who needed counseling but when I went to the vice-principal, he said that because of cutbacks, the district has poured all the resources in the classroom, so I will have to come up with a solution. I told him that I can control the student’s actions for the time being but that will not solve the root of the problem. The counselor’s schedule was full and the vice-principal restated that I will have to solve the problem myself. I told him that I would solve the problem myself if I knew what to do. He did not offer any suggestions and did not respond. It is not uncommon for classrooms to consist of seventy-five to eighty percent ESL students of varying levels. The current policy is for ESL students to be integrated into regular classrooms which I totally agree with, but I can’t begin to tell you the difficulties of teaching a class about word problems in math or a new science concept when you have a student who does not even recognize his/her own name or know the alphabet. While I am worrying about all the students above, I also need to make sure that the rest of the class is learning so they will meet the expectations for their age group. Keep in mind that when we are helping an individual student, this takes away from time spent with other students. This job is particularly more difficult if the principal has assigned you a split grade and you have to worry about teaching two different curriculums.

You would think that a teacher with an autistic son would have more answers on how to remedy the situation. I have gained significant knowledge about autism and treatments but this knowledge has caused me more stress. I know the difference that an ABA program can make in a child, but I am frustrated because I do not have the expertise or resources to implement one in my classroom. Unfortunately, the research has not yet reached the school level and I have little hope of it happening during the years of budget cutbacks. A few years ago our district eliminated the positions of the district resource teachers who solely worked on helping to design programs for special needs children. Now the district has only two special needs consultants – I will let you do the math about how much time, if any, each child receives. Yes, we teachers believe in integration, but we need help! We cannot be expected to be experts in all disabilities. Think about all the years of training that goes into a board certified behaviour analyst. We are fortunate if we are able register for an introductory school board workshop on autism before it fills up.

It is fantastic to hear that you were successful with your child and I pray that my son and I will follow in your footsteps. It is my guess that you did your research and were very involved in your child’s education, as well as in other aspects of your child’s life. Unfortunately, not all special needs students have parents who are involved (language barriers, education, time), so teachers ultimately try to advocate for these students, but as I have described earlier and as you have indicated in your writing, our views and recommendations are often not taken seriously.

[Janet Toye]

The Vancouver and Burnaby ABA Support Network Group will be having a joint meeting on Wednesday, February 16th from 6:30-8:00pm. If you have a child/children with ASD and practice ABA or are interested in getting information about ABA, you're welcome to join us. Parents will have opportunities to share their experiences and knowledge while networking with other parents. If you are interested in attending, please email Gordon at jftoye@hotmail.com. We live by Rupert St and 19th Avenue in East Vancouver.

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